


This is Crazier Than the Time I Fell in Love

by espurr_roba



Category: Family Guy, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, get with the program sheeple, the true otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espurr_roba/pseuds/espurr_roba
Summary: Pearl drowns her sorrows at a bar and meets a human. It is a foregone conclusion.





	This is Crazier Than the Time I Fell in Love

She supposes it’s almost comical, what twisted sense of irony the universe presents her.

She could hardly recall the events that drove her as it was happening, but now, sitting hunched over a bar counter, her lips still not touching the shot glass in front of her, it was crystal clear.

A stray comment from Amethyst. A tired reprimand from Garnet. A gentle and ever patient reassurance from Steven that only served to make her choke up harder. He is sweet and endlessly kind but does he not see that that is the  _ problem?! _

She has to hold back the gross sobs that attempt to litter the stained counter, and it reminds her what a  _ stupid  _ decision coming here was. Never in her thousands of years on this planet would she have ever entertained the notion of drowning her sorrows in alcohol (a weaker part of her admitted that she did in fact once attempt to; she was told alcohol would numb the pain of loss, but she was too much of a coward to find out).

And still… here she was.

She wonders, idly, if the others have gone to look for her, if they’re about to come and save her from this embarrassment.

Staring at her untouched shot glass, she already knows that won't be the case.

She sighs. She really had thought she was getting better. That she was finally moving on.

“S’cuse me.”

A plump, pink body sits in the stool next to her, and she is hit with a wave of unbridled joy that quickly falls into utter depression.

This stranger is pink skinned and has the body of a goddamn angel but that is where the similarities end. Seeming to be biologically male, he dons a white collared shirt that meshes against every fold of his body, and his hair is short, brown, swept, and only slightly messy. She can only see the profile of his face, but she can see infuriatingly crooked glasses and a chin that reminds her vaguely of Steven for some reason.

“Vodka, please.”

She watches as this stranger downs his alcohol fearlessly, with absolutely no regard for his own well-being. A rush of familiarity hits her suddenly. This is something she knows, this is comforting.

It must be why she continues to stare at him, why she doesn't realize this is not the social norm until his eyes slide towards hers, eyebrow raised. His head rests tiredly in his free hand and he gives a ghost of a pained smirk and she has to snap her gaze away so fast she’s pretty sure she hears an actual snap.

In her peripheral she can see his shoulders hitch slightly. A beat later, she realizes that he is chuckling. “What’s the matter? I ain't that ugly, am I?” There’s an accent to his words, one that Pearl did not ever care to learn. Coastal, she hazards a guess.

She turns back to him, slowly, not sure of what the appropriate response here is.

Luckily for her, he keeps going. 

“You some kinda lightweight or somethin’?”

She almost responds truthfully, that she weighs equivalent to her projected form which mostly adheres to the featherlight side. Then she registers the tone of his voice, subdued but jovial. This is a human colloquialism, she realizes. Rose was fond of those.

Suddenly her breath hitches. The mere thought of Rose brings her to the brink of tears, the wound of loss attempting to tear open after years of neglect.

She doesn't mean for the human to notice, but he does all the same, and the jokiness of his voice is pushed aside in favor of concern. “Aw jeez, you okay?

She doesn't understand why this stranger—this  _ human,  _ she has to remind herself—cares so much about her well-being, especially considering she had yet to properly speak to him. It is, however, oddly touching. “I am—I’m fine,” she splutters out.

He is silent for a moment. Perhaps she is just so transparent over how  _ not fine  _ she is he doesn't feel the need to prod. After such a long time that she’s pretty sure the fluorescent lights are flickering intentionally and impatiently.

Finally, he looks down at his empty shot glass, swishing the imaginary liquid idly. “‘S’good,” he mutters.

Pearl doesn't know what drives her to do so—maybe it’s the sense that he too has gone through a painful loss--but she thrusts her hand out towards this man. “Pearl,” she greets.

He eyes the hand for only a moment before taking it with his own. His hand is soft and plush and Pearl wonders if she actually has a type.

“Peter,” he says. “Peter Griffin.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Griffin,” she says, as formal as ever.

He laughs to himself, a quiet laugh like this is some kind of inside joke that no one in the world but him is in on. “Pleasure’s mine, Pearly.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, the gentle murmurs of bar patrons lulling them further. For the first time this night, Pearl feels… safe.

Suddenly a wave of panic washes over her. What is she  _ doing?!?  _ This isn't—she doesn't—a  _ human,  _ what could she possibly be…

She looks at this man— _ human— _ a giant meld of flesh and form fitting clothing and a demeanor like the world has taken everything from him but  _ has it _ has he known a pain that lasts for millennia from seeing everyone you know and love turn to dust and shatter?!

She sees him order another shot, and she has to remind herself that humans can face pain to, that what was a human if not the sights they see and the sounds they hear and the simple,  _ complicated  _ lives they live?

She sees it in the way that he downs the hardest alcohol he can get. 

He is numbing his pain.

“What brings you down here in Beach City, Mr. Griffin?” she asks in an attempt to at least distract him from whatever he is going through. It’s the least she could do, after he has given her the time of day.

He barks a bitter laugh. “Only bar on the east coast I ain't banned from.”

“Come now, I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.” She means for her tone to be lighthearted but from the way he stills she worries she may have been too accusatory.

Suddenly his shoulders hitch, and Pearl isn't sure whether it’s from laughter or sobbing. Whatever it is, it is quickly masked.“Yeah,” he says bitterly. “I’m sure the Clam’ll take me back.”

She admits, she doesn't know what this Clam is. She assumes it’s some sort of bar, but there’s certainly none named as such here in Beach City. “Is that in your hometown?” she ventures a guess. “Might I ask where that is?”

He is silent yet again, and Pearl is worried her inability to read the atmosphere has gone too far.

But then he snaps his head up, and for the first time tonight she is finally able to see his face fully.

His eye are beady and brown--so dark they're practically indistinguishable from his pupils--and his glasses hang low against his nose. He doesn't even try to mask the pain his eyes reveal.

“Quahog,” is all he says.

It comes as a bit of a shock. Pearl is semi-aware of Quahog’s infamy, enough to know that there is a reason why the Crystal Gems have never settled base there. 

“Quahog?” she echoes. “That’s certainly far.”

“Yeah, well, I’m off of that road from Rhode Island or whatever the hell that episode was about…” He is quickly becoming inebriated, she realizes. Nonsense is spewing from his mouth, but she finds it oddly endearing.

He eyes her yet again, always looking at her face first but her eyes second. “So what’s a dame like you’s doin’ in a place like this?”

It’s an odd vernacular, she thinks. She hasn't heard such language since the 1950’s. It’s nostalgic of sorts.

She attempts to be modest but what comes out is a pretentious, “I protect Beach City and I’ve saved your planet and your species and you're welcome,” and  _ wow  _ did she not learn her lesson with Mystery Girl?

Instead of giving her one of those strange looks she has unfortunately become all too accustomed to, he chuckles. “Wow. You're funny, lady. Almost believed ya there for a moment.”

She decides not to tell him otherwise.

“But hey, lady, you're too good for this place. I mean, you're about as out of place as David Hayter is in Home Alone 3.”

He laughs to himself like it’s the funniest joke in the world, and all Pearl can do is just stare. “I don't understand this analogy.”

“Heh, yeah, didn't expect ya to.” He downs another shot, and the shot glass nearly cracks when he sets it down. “S’called a cutaway gag. Kinda my thing.”

"I see,” she says, when she in fact does not.

“Don't gotta make a lotta sense,” he continues. “What matters is that it makes ya laugh. Nobody else.”

“I see,” she says again, and this time she starts to understand. “This is, er, more confusing than when Steven told me about his male dreams?” she tries, and isn't that so true? What even  _ are  _ male dreams anyhow?

She worries she may have screwed up, but Peter just laughs. It’s nothing like the barks of bitterness or the quiet and amused chuckles, but a laugh that is genuine and wholehearted and just  _ daring  _ the world to take this sort of happiness away.

It is so much  _ Rose  _ that Pearl has to force herself to settle her gaze back at her own shot glass.

Peter doesn't notice this time, too absorbed in whatever it was in her cutaway that made him laugh so hard. “Sweet, now you're gettin’ it!”

“I-I am?” she asks, flustered, and stuffs the baggage back in the recluse of her brain and meets his gaze. “Why, I don't--”

“Aw c’mon, you’re a natural just like Kanye!”

Now this one she  _ really  _ doesn't understand, but his motivations do start to filter through Pearl’s awareness. It is vaguely reminiscent of Amethyst, how he defaults straight to jokes and laughter like he isn't thinking. Like he doesn’t  _ want  _ to think.

Pearl can empathize.

It’s why now, as she sits in a grimy little bar with lights that flicker haphazardly, she decides to enable his attempts.

“Mm, well, this, er,  _ alcohol  _ is more repulsive than the time Amethyst tried to feed me motor oil.”

“No kiddin’! That’s almost as crazy as Judge Judy playin’ Yugioh!”

“Well, my little family can get  _ pretty  _ crazy. It’s as crazy as the time Steven went to something called a  _ rave _ with Connie.”

“That sounds just like the time Lois—”

He stops so suddenly Pearl is worried that the alcohol has caused central nerve damage. As it turns out though, he’s… crying.

It's gross and human and he is streaming sickly sinus-ridden tears, but they're tears of a man who has lost everything that has ever made him happy in this cold and unforgiving world. This is a man who thought alcohol would numb him pain but it only served to make him feel so much  _ harder _ .

“Peter…” she reaches her hand out to console him but he jerks away like she’s a burning roof.

“Don't,” he chokes out. “You… she… you sound so much like her.”

She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know why she refrains from speaking.

“I told her—I said to her—I never got to say…” His sentences are short and they're punctuated by shallow, raspy breaths. His stubby fingers reach out to claw at his trembling face. “Lois fucking  _ died  _ and I-I... oh  _ god  _ I miss her s-so much.”

Pearl can only sit there awkwardly, unsure of the socially appropriate way to console him. She glances around the bar hoping to whatever higher deity was out there that he doesn't get himself removed from the premises, but it comes as a shock that no one--not the bartender, not the bar patrons, not the shady crack dealer--even  _ care _ .

She feels a simmering anger for Peter’s sake.

This was someone in pain. She wasn't allowed the luxury of having Amethyst and Garnet care about her, but maybe she can be there for him.

“Tell me about her,” she says soothingly, because she knows this is what Rose always wanted to hear whenever her human boytoys perished, and she figures this is as good a thing to say as any.

He sniffs, still sobbing but now it’s more subdued. Resigned, even. It breaks Pearl’s metaphysical heart. “S-She was… she was a damn saint. She looked at the world, looked at what it gave her, and she said to the world  _ screw it _ , she was gonna do her  _ own  _ thing. But god _ damn  _ was she too good for it.”

Pearl is painfully, painfully aware of the parallels she is drawing of this Lois and her Rose. She forces those thoughts into the locked chest in her mind, one she buries even further down and down and down.

He chokes. “A-And now she’s gone...”

“And you're still here,” she finishes, and her baggage shoots out from the earth’s molten core.

His puffy, red eyes scan hers, too vulnerable to put up any mask but too scared to let her read them. 

Pearl idly swishes the whiskey in her shot glass. It must be tasteless and lukewarm by now. “I lost my lover too. She was beautiful and kind and she saw the best in everything and everyone and she… she made me feel like I was worth something…”

“But… but she ain’t comin’ back,” Peter says miserably.

“No. She’s not.” 

Pearl takes one final look at her shot glass, the alcohol within it stagnant and unmoving. Never changing, always being the same thing it was destined to be. If not cooped up in an opaque bottle, then in a clear glass cup, always contained, never free to exist by itself.

She knows if she ever lets go of Rose, she won’t be strong enough to keep herself aloft, to keep herself from spilling into an unrecoverable mess. She misses her too much to ever be self sufficient.

Her eyes slide towards him, a man who is hurting in much the same way.

Maybe she’s not strong enough now, but with time, she will be.

Pearl raises the glass to her lips and she downs the shot in one sitting. It is slimy and burns the insides of her projected form and she knows she will feel its consequences later in the night but right now she knows this is the right choice. This is the now she wants to live in.

And now is the time for change.

She turns to Peter and attempts to give him a proud and inviting look, but perhaps it is too inviting because she suddenly feels his lips crash against hers.

For a fraction of a moment she feels a wave of panic and disgust, because this is a  _ human  _ and his flesh is smushing right against hers and his potent breath is making her tingling throat burn like a propane tank exploding into millions of burning hot shrapnel, but then he moans in pained ecstasy and she can feel his tears sliding down both of their faces and then it clicks that  _ oh  _ she  _ really  _ has a type.

Suddenly her body finally reacts and she pushes herself into Peter’s immense fat. Her tongue digs deep into his throat, tasting a repulsive mix of saliva and hard alcohol but she relishes it, relishes the pain because it’s a pain she knows and can share. 

She digs her fingers into his endless arms, and it’s a good thing she doesn’t need to breathe because she could go  _ all  _ day here.

Peter gasps with each and every wet, slobbery kiss, and she can feel the desperation oozing out of him, the sheer plea for the universe to let him keep this  _ one  _ thing, this  _ one  _ thing in a sea of torment and loss, and it’s a plea that she is all too happy to share.

She doesn’t know how long it’s been—gosh that’s unusual, it’s a wonder how much this human has affected her in so quick a timespan—but they somehow manage to pull away from each other. 

Peter has his back arched against the counter, panting heavily. She is almost envious that this sort of reaction is necessary for him. “God, that was… uh… thanks.”

Pearl gives a warm smile, like she wasn’t just experiencing fireworks in her vessel just minutes earlier. “Likewise.”

He stares at her for what must be at least the fifth time this night, and it makes Pearl feel like something is fluttering in the spot a stomach should be. “You know what you got that reminds me most about her?”

She sees his eyes go to her face first and her eyes second. At first she assumed the gem embedded within her forehead was distracting him but she doesn’t think that’s the case anymore. “Mm?”

He leans forward. “She had a sandwich nose.”

Pearl will never understand humans, but she is content to fill the empty space between their lips.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame all of you for enabling this.


End file.
